Australian Pro Photo – Issue 240 – September 2023
English | 54 pages | pdf | 22.82 MB
Welcome at Australian Pro Photo Magazine Issue 240 September 2023
Told you this would happen. So far, all our discussions of AI-generated imagery – a scourge if ever there was one – has curtained on these so-called artworks being entered in photography competitions. In the cases of the ones we know about, the perpetrators have come clean – although, in the case of this year’s Sony World Photo Competition, only as the category prize was about to be awarded which is just wrong – but there may well be a few more that have gone undetected.
Now we’ve been told about an image – that was genuinely created using an Apple iPhone – that was ejected from a competition because the judges suspected it may have been AI-generated. Professional photographer Wendy McDougall does some promotional work for Sydney professional printer Charing Cross Photo and this includes a monthly themed photo competition. The four judges were initially very struck by the image, but then began having their suspicions. They dutifully checked the image’s metadata, but couldn’t determine one way or another whether AI generation had been involved.
Wendy explains, “We had an image submitted to our recent comp with the theme ‘Fashion’ that we could not work out if it was real or not, and couldn’t find the correct contact details to speak with the creator. Also, because we have been taking about AI since the Sony World Photo situation, we decided CCP would not accept AI images until we could work out how we tell them apart and how we would judge them.”
An understandable approach under circumstances, but when the disqualification became more widely known, the furore was almost as big as that surrounding the unmasking of the competition entries purporting to be real photographs. The matter has since been settled amicably, but you can see the Australian Pro Photo Magazine issues it has raised, not least being the extra time and effort – plus the fall-out – that was needed to maintain the integrity of the competition. Some AI-generated ‘photographs’ have a tell-tale look (there’s often something wrong with hands, and it’s not good with reflections), but we’re now so accustomed to Photoshop manipulations that it’s quite hard to tell… and the AI software is getting cleverer with every generational upgrade so it’ll soon be impossible. Inevitably, to avoid either awarding a fake photo a prize or throwing out a genuine winner, photo competitions will simply have to wave the white flag and have an AI category, but I truly can’t see where there is any creativity in typing a bit of text into software which then does all the work. I must be missing something, and I’m really mystified by those who think this can legitimately be a part of a competition for photography… with cameras, lenses, time and effort.
With any creative endeavour, the process is as much a part of it as the outcome… and the process is where the imagination, ideas, inspirations and ingenuity are applied to create an original work with the inherent creative value (and satisfaction) that comes as a result of these inputs. And, if you’ve gone to all this trouble and come up with something that really grabs the attention, there’s a now very good chance that many people – including experience photo comp judges, will ask, “Yes, but is it real?’. Such doubts only serve to diminish what a photographer has legitimately achieved so, somehow, we need to find a way of ensuring that AI-generated images are identified as such – which is going to be hard, if not impossible, to enforce in any legal sense – otherwise it’s going to just come down to honesty… hmmm. However, playing devil’s advocate – which I should here – you can see how it would be a lot of fun to play around with and, with full disclosure, a thing in its own right… but not a photograph.
Wendy McDougall comments, “Why we currently don’t like AI art is because a real person did not have a real experience with their results showing us that they understand light, composition, camera techniques and telling a story. This is what our photo comps are all about, as much as creating a community for like-minded creative types. It’s a rather tricky, delicate, scary and challenging topic.”
Of course, the AI art genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and isn’t ever going back in, but the photography world could, collectively, find ways to put it into a box that will constrain its usage or, perhaps more effectively, its appeal. If we again put value back into camera work – and not so much monetary value, but intrinsic value – then the practice has the potential to have its own unique attractions. Think bespoke. Think, maybe, along the lines of the ‘lost trades’ that are finding a growing following among people who want something more individual, genuine, characterful… and believable.
Paul Burrows, Editor
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